By Nick Huzar, Founder & CEO of OfferUp
No one tells you that when you become a dad, your life is changed forever. A little over six years ago, that was my next big chapter, and I found myself trying to get rid of things that represented “the bachelorhood” to make room for my daughter and all of the baby cargo that came along with her. Facing a completely new set of household needs, I started thinking about the millions of parents who find themselves in similar situations — people trying to downsize, make a little extra money, or tackle a shopping list on a budget — and it quickly became obvious that there wasn’t an easy or trusted way to buy and sell in our own communities.
OfferUp was born out of both opportunity and frustration. Frustration that there wasn’t an easy way to buy and sell items in an age where mobile devices had become the remote control to one’s daily life; and frustration about the lack of attention paid to ensuring a more trusted experience for people trying to meet up with strangers to transact. The opportunity was to build the simplest and most trustworthy local buying and selling experience for anyone, anywhere.
The last six years have been an adventure and an incredible journey. But as I reflect, it’s not the long hours, the spreadsheets, or the product plans that define the company today. It’s the millions of people we’ve had the privilege to buy and sell with along the way. Their stories inspire me to continue building a marketplace and community where people are connecting in positive ways. I really believe it’s the power of those connections that has made OfferUp the largest mobile marketplace for local buyers and sellers in the US. We’re grateful to have become such an important part of millions of people’s lives, and we want to focus on fostering more of those connections both in and beyond OfferUp. That focus has required us to take a hard look at what makes rewarding connections possible, and we’ve realized that it all boils down to one thing: Trust.
For two people to come together on common ground, they need to be able to trust each other. Trust is one of the fundamental tenets on which society exists. It’s the bedrock of strong neighborhoods, strong cities, and strong societies. It’s also the essential part of everyday transactions and vital to our success as a marketplace. So we’ve set out to help create more of it.
We’re starting off where we always do: with something simple. Last year we kicked off a community dinner series in Los Angeles called NeighborUp. The idea was that when we talk to each other openly about who we are and what we care about, we can start to understand where people are coming from and begin to build more trust and empathy. These dinners were such a success (you can read more about them here) that we’ll be taking them on the road to help people across the US host their own conversations, in their own neighborhoods.
Through the NeighborUp Community Program, we’ll be hosting events, convening dinners, and rolling up our sleeves with local businesses, civic leaders, and OfferUp members around the country. And we’ll be celebrating the connections and conversations we have along the way.
Follow along on Instagram or Facebook, and join NeighborUp here.
Looking forward to meeting you.
